Saturday, August 31, 2013
it's finally time to step away from the social circle that developed out of the occupy ottawa action
i’m disengaging substantially. that’s not to say that i’m going to be completely disinterested in organizing in windsor, but i didn’t come down here to organize the labour movement or to meet friends or anything like that. i came down here because the rent is cheap and that would give me space to create without having to concern myself with markets and because, in the medium run, it seems like this may be an area where large scale squatting may have some potential in helping to build a post-work society. i've been vocal about these things and am being consistent. so, this is where my focus is turning. i’m not a labour activist, don’t want to be and often don’t even agree with labour-oriented political positions. i mean, i’m certainly going to be looking around for tazs around here, but i think i’m at least a decade too early. and if anybody needs anything, i’m still interested in helping so don’t hesitate to ask.
believe it or not, i’ve actually been biting my tongue on a lot of issues. there’s a short list of things i want to address before i float off into the aether, but i don’t want to be too overwhelming so i’m going to do it one at a time over the course of about a week. i’m going to eventually be writing some more in-depth literature that explores these topics in more depth. i’m not going to remove myself from spaces or delete people or behave in the same destructive, angry way that some others have, or even stop reading altogether, but i would expect future correspondence from me on activist issues to be minimal for the medium future.
i just don’t think that the occupy movement or the things that have come from it actually are or ever really were things that could be classified as belonging to an anarchist movement. it’s really only tentatively identified as even being on the left at all. most of the politics i see promoted here are either not really ideological or are actually on the far right (like support for ethnic and religious nationalism). what is bothering me is when i see these things intertwine, as that is when things get scary. i’m going to kill your individuality for a minute…
the unfortunate truth is that history has demonstrated, repeatedly, that populist movements always end up on the far right. it is the nature of populism. go across the world, at any point in history, and this is what you will always see. no exceptions. isn’t that the crux of our approach, though? we reject vanguard politics as self-defeating, and denounce the state as inherently oppressive. we understand that we must use force to dismantle hierarchy, and yet do not want to recreate more in it’s wake, and so align ourselves horizontally. so, what is my critique?
these movements may claim that they’re anarchist, but i think that a more careful examination of the way they’re structured presents a stronger marxist leaning and the inevitable result is going to be all the predictable problems that come with marxist approaches to communism. in the end, the groups always have leaders, they’re always agitating and they always see themselves as the enlightened few. there’s always a break between the inside and the outside. i’ve been attacked and tried to be put back in line more than once for naively treating horizontality as a base assumption. it’s never really, actually present. i think a lot of you are legitimately really good at working horizontally, but a lot of you aren’t really even interested in it and a good chunk of you are actually pretending that you’re interested in working horizontally for undefined other reasons. i think a few of you are even interested in parliamentary politics. :(. now, i’m being hypocritical. i see that. but it’s a little scary to watch play out. to the authoritarians and opportunists: you know who you are, and i see right through you.
so, i think that’s the critique. an anarchist collective shouldn’t actively agitate. it shouldn’t even be a collective, really. there’s no such thing as horizontal organizing. people can come together spontaneously and work together on a horizontal basis, but they can’t be organized to work horizontally. that’s inherently vertical. no, it’s not a fair trade-off, the end doesn’t justify the means and i can no longer compromise on the point.
so, i claim that revolution must be spontaneous, that it cannot be organized and that attempts to organize can only result in further oppression. ok. this is an old argument. i’ve said it before. i’m not going to say anything that hasn’t already been said, and nobody is going to respond in ways that haven’t already been presented. we’re not going to magically solve this centuries old debate now through some incredibly shared epiphany. however, that places me on the outside of this group. i don’t feel it isolates me from everybody in it, but i do feel it isn’t the right place for me, or at least isn’t the right place for me as more than an adjunct. think of it like this: i refuse to join the iww because i don’t really feel i’m in agreement with the organization. unions are inherently reformist, sure, but it’s actually more basic than that. i’m more aligned with environmental issues, and i’m opposed to the concept of wage labour. yet, i’m willing to help if the opportunity comes up – and have and will again. i guess i’m retreating to a similar position with this group.
i should blame myself a little. i suppose i made the false assumption that the view that spontaneity is necessary was widespread here, that i could take identifications at face value and that the marxist activist façade was sort of just that. or maybe i’m not being entirely honest. maybe i realized that from the start. maybe that’s why i didn’t camp. maybe it’s more like i needed a little bit of social stimulation and was willing to put this old, tired argument aside until the fifth beer. regardless, the combination of refocusing my life with my insistence on spontaneity rather than organization forms the core reason for my decision to disengage from active participation in this sort of resistance. there’s an old story about somebody named sisyphus….
again: if people need help with something that i can do here in windsor, even if it’s as simple as a request for a couch, then do ask. it’s less about burning bridges and more about refocusing. *this* is simply about providing a sort of report on my observations over the last few years before i pivot. take from it what you may…
to minimize space, i’ll post it all in one thread. i’m going to talk a little about tactics tomorrow.
believe it or not, i’ve actually been biting my tongue on a lot of issues. there’s a short list of things i want to address before i float off into the aether, but i don’t want to be too overwhelming so i’m going to do it one at a time over the course of about a week. i’m going to eventually be writing some more in-depth literature that explores these topics in more depth. i’m not going to remove myself from spaces or delete people or behave in the same destructive, angry way that some others have, or even stop reading altogether, but i would expect future correspondence from me on activist issues to be minimal for the medium future.
i just don’t think that the occupy movement or the things that have come from it actually are or ever really were things that could be classified as belonging to an anarchist movement. it’s really only tentatively identified as even being on the left at all. most of the politics i see promoted here are either not really ideological or are actually on the far right (like support for ethnic and religious nationalism). what is bothering me is when i see these things intertwine, as that is when things get scary. i’m going to kill your individuality for a minute…
the unfortunate truth is that history has demonstrated, repeatedly, that populist movements always end up on the far right. it is the nature of populism. go across the world, at any point in history, and this is what you will always see. no exceptions. isn’t that the crux of our approach, though? we reject vanguard politics as self-defeating, and denounce the state as inherently oppressive. we understand that we must use force to dismantle hierarchy, and yet do not want to recreate more in it’s wake, and so align ourselves horizontally. so, what is my critique?
these movements may claim that they’re anarchist, but i think that a more careful examination of the way they’re structured presents a stronger marxist leaning and the inevitable result is going to be all the predictable problems that come with marxist approaches to communism. in the end, the groups always have leaders, they’re always agitating and they always see themselves as the enlightened few. there’s always a break between the inside and the outside. i’ve been attacked and tried to be put back in line more than once for naively treating horizontality as a base assumption. it’s never really, actually present. i think a lot of you are legitimately really good at working horizontally, but a lot of you aren’t really even interested in it and a good chunk of you are actually pretending that you’re interested in working horizontally for undefined other reasons. i think a few of you are even interested in parliamentary politics. :(. now, i’m being hypocritical. i see that. but it’s a little scary to watch play out. to the authoritarians and opportunists: you know who you are, and i see right through you.
so, i think that’s the critique. an anarchist collective shouldn’t actively agitate. it shouldn’t even be a collective, really. there’s no such thing as horizontal organizing. people can come together spontaneously and work together on a horizontal basis, but they can’t be organized to work horizontally. that’s inherently vertical. no, it’s not a fair trade-off, the end doesn’t justify the means and i can no longer compromise on the point.
so, i claim that revolution must be spontaneous, that it cannot be organized and that attempts to organize can only result in further oppression. ok. this is an old argument. i’ve said it before. i’m not going to say anything that hasn’t already been said, and nobody is going to respond in ways that haven’t already been presented. we’re not going to magically solve this centuries old debate now through some incredibly shared epiphany. however, that places me on the outside of this group. i don’t feel it isolates me from everybody in it, but i do feel it isn’t the right place for me, or at least isn’t the right place for me as more than an adjunct. think of it like this: i refuse to join the iww because i don’t really feel i’m in agreement with the organization. unions are inherently reformist, sure, but it’s actually more basic than that. i’m more aligned with environmental issues, and i’m opposed to the concept of wage labour. yet, i’m willing to help if the opportunity comes up – and have and will again. i guess i’m retreating to a similar position with this group.
i should blame myself a little. i suppose i made the false assumption that the view that spontaneity is necessary was widespread here, that i could take identifications at face value and that the marxist activist façade was sort of just that. or maybe i’m not being entirely honest. maybe i realized that from the start. maybe that’s why i didn’t camp. maybe it’s more like i needed a little bit of social stimulation and was willing to put this old, tired argument aside until the fifth beer. regardless, the combination of refocusing my life with my insistence on spontaneity rather than organization forms the core reason for my decision to disengage from active participation in this sort of resistance. there’s an old story about somebody named sisyphus….
again: if people need help with something that i can do here in windsor, even if it’s as simple as a request for a couch, then do ask. it’s less about burning bridges and more about refocusing. *this* is simply about providing a sort of report on my observations over the last few years before i pivot. take from it what you may…
to minimize space, i’ll post it all in one thread. i’m going to talk a little about tactics tomorrow.
Friday, August 30, 2013
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: grandmother’s email address
hi nana...
most of the mail is probably from banks, some of it from student loan stuff, and the rest of it i don't know. maybe tax stuff? i've updated my address at one bank and will update the address at the other one soon. for now, the student loan stuff will have to wait until i figure out my phone situation. i'm just going to ask you to hold on to it for now and i'll call you in a few weeks and we can sort through stuff i may want you to forward and stuff you can throw out.
i'm not sure what i'm going to do about the phone. i don't want to pay for phone and internet. i'm happy to pay for internet, though, so i'm hoping i can work something out with an internet phone. it could conceivably be free. i'll probably get a used iphone and use it just for pay-as-you-go text messaging, but that's not for a while still.
i actually kind of like not having a phone, to be honest. anybody i actually want to communicate with can and will contact me over the internet. i find that phones are just used by telemarketers and bill collectors. but having a number over the internet will be useful for various things, if it's free.
the place is still in flux. i've spent the last month cleaning it, getting appliances and furniture and doing little fix up things like building shelves. it's been a long and slow process but i think i should be done with most of the place by monday. the room i haven't started with yet is the recording room....
i'm almost two weeks not smoking and don't plan on going back.
i've been posting lots of pictures and stuff on facebook, but i'll send you a sort of report in pdf format when i'm done. to describe it? when you walk in, there's a big walkway with a living room off to the side. there's a room off the living room that i'm going to use as a sort of a porch. when you go through the walkway, there's a very large kitchen off to the across from the living room and a bathroom straight ahead. if you take a turn there's a bedroom. then, if you turn all the way around there's another walkway that is parallel to the first one that goes out to a second entrance. there's a second bedroom (which i'm using as a recording studio) off of the second walkway. there's also a door that closes off the second entrance.
the way it's set up has led me to the conclusion that the second entrance was probably meant for a servant at one time. the building is fairly old, and windsor is in an area of ontario that has a background of slavery and racism leading well into the 20th century. as canadians, we take a lot of pride in the underground railroad, which shipped a lot of slaves out of the united states and into southern ontario. but, the history is actually pretty bad if you take the time to read through it more closely. southern ontario was also populated primarily by white british empire loyalists that migrated north at various points to escape the various american revolutions, and they brought a lot of southern attitudes into the area. so, when the slaves were let out at the other end of the railroad, they may have been "free" but they faced massive amounts of racism. there were actually segregated schools in this area up until the 1960s. the weird thing about the segregated schools in ontario, though, is that they were created by the government in order to try and *minimize* racism that was happening through integration.
it's an old city, and while some of it is quite lovely, a lot of it has a very dark character to it. you can guess i've been trying to learn a bit about it...
anyways, i'll call you about the mail in a few weeks.
j
To: grandmother’s email address
hi nana...
most of the mail is probably from banks, some of it from student loan stuff, and the rest of it i don't know. maybe tax stuff? i've updated my address at one bank and will update the address at the other one soon. for now, the student loan stuff will have to wait until i figure out my phone situation. i'm just going to ask you to hold on to it for now and i'll call you in a few weeks and we can sort through stuff i may want you to forward and stuff you can throw out.
i'm not sure what i'm going to do about the phone. i don't want to pay for phone and internet. i'm happy to pay for internet, though, so i'm hoping i can work something out with an internet phone. it could conceivably be free. i'll probably get a used iphone and use it just for pay-as-you-go text messaging, but that's not for a while still.
i actually kind of like not having a phone, to be honest. anybody i actually want to communicate with can and will contact me over the internet. i find that phones are just used by telemarketers and bill collectors. but having a number over the internet will be useful for various things, if it's free.
the place is still in flux. i've spent the last month cleaning it, getting appliances and furniture and doing little fix up things like building shelves. it's been a long and slow process but i think i should be done with most of the place by monday. the room i haven't started with yet is the recording room....
i'm almost two weeks not smoking and don't plan on going back.
i've been posting lots of pictures and stuff on facebook, but i'll send you a sort of report in pdf format when i'm done. to describe it? when you walk in, there's a big walkway with a living room off to the side. there's a room off the living room that i'm going to use as a sort of a porch. when you go through the walkway, there's a very large kitchen off to the across from the living room and a bathroom straight ahead. if you take a turn there's a bedroom. then, if you turn all the way around there's another walkway that is parallel to the first one that goes out to a second entrance. there's a second bedroom (which i'm using as a recording studio) off of the second walkway. there's also a door that closes off the second entrance.
the way it's set up has led me to the conclusion that the second entrance was probably meant for a servant at one time. the building is fairly old, and windsor is in an area of ontario that has a background of slavery and racism leading well into the 20th century. as canadians, we take a lot of pride in the underground railroad, which shipped a lot of slaves out of the united states and into southern ontario. but, the history is actually pretty bad if you take the time to read through it more closely. southern ontario was also populated primarily by white british empire loyalists that migrated north at various points to escape the various american revolutions, and they brought a lot of southern attitudes into the area. so, when the slaves were let out at the other end of the railroad, they may have been "free" but they faced massive amounts of racism. there were actually segregated schools in this area up until the 1960s. the weird thing about the segregated schools in ontario, though, is that they were created by the government in order to try and *minimize* racism that was happening through integration.
it's an old city, and while some of it is quite lovely, a lot of it has a very dark character to it. you can guess i've been trying to learn a bit about it...
anyways, i'll call you about the mail in a few weeks.
j
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
Moving & rental request
From: Community and Social Services ABU
To: "'death.to.koalas@gmail.com'" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Good morning Jason,
Your request for funding to move to Windsor, and provide first and last month rent, has been denied. Due to 2013 budget cuts the City of Ottawa no longer pays for moves outside the municipality. You can approach your current municipality for your needs with rental costs.
To: "'death.to.koalas@gmail.com'" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Good morning Jason,
Your request for funding to move to Windsor, and provide first and last month rent, has been denied. Due to 2013 budget cuts the City of Ottawa no longer pays for moves outside the municipality. You can approach your current municipality for your needs with rental costs.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
good morning!
this morning brings me to a full week of not buying cigarettes, which i'll admit is the easy part. i've specifically been lax on myself this week in giving in to most urges and it has worked in gradually bringing me down to a few a day. i had two yesterday. i'm going to wait another week before i try and force a serious cold turkey on myself.
i've mentioned i've been through the beginning stages repeatedly and tend to go back to smoking on account of spending a night drinking (indicating that quitting smoking would be an easy thing for me to do if i just quit drinking for a few months, which is ironic because i've never felt remotely addicted to alcohol), and the annoying part that tends to get to me is the lethargy that sets in the first few days. i think that that is lifting....
i've never been a solo drinker, so i think this change of scenery is going to help get me off nicotine....
why not try e-cigs, you ask?
bah. that strikes me as really contrived, like as though you'd see somebody with hair extensions eating daiya cheese and smoking an e-cig while they play second life kind of thing. it might work on some level, but i wouldn't want anybody to see me!
i know i can quit; really, the ease of doing so is probably why i keep going back. "yeah, i've barely been smoking for three weeks, but it doesn't really matter if i smoke my face off tonight because i can quit again in a few days" sort of thing. and this has largely been true, even. i've never really taken addiction seriously, although i've learned that there is such a thing as physical addiction and refraining from substances can produce physical effects.
i'm for reals this time, though.
this morning brings me to a full week of not buying cigarettes, which i'll admit is the easy part. i've specifically been lax on myself this week in giving in to most urges and it has worked in gradually bringing me down to a few a day. i had two yesterday. i'm going to wait another week before i try and force a serious cold turkey on myself.
i've mentioned i've been through the beginning stages repeatedly and tend to go back to smoking on account of spending a night drinking (indicating that quitting smoking would be an easy thing for me to do if i just quit drinking for a few months, which is ironic because i've never felt remotely addicted to alcohol), and the annoying part that tends to get to me is the lethargy that sets in the first few days. i think that that is lifting....
i've never been a solo drinker, so i think this change of scenery is going to help get me off nicotine....
why not try e-cigs, you ask?
bah. that strikes me as really contrived, like as though you'd see somebody with hair extensions eating daiya cheese and smoking an e-cig while they play second life kind of thing. it might work on some level, but i wouldn't want anybody to see me!
i know i can quit; really, the ease of doing so is probably why i keep going back. "yeah, i've barely been smoking for three weeks, but it doesn't really matter if i smoke my face off tonight because i can quit again in a few days" sort of thing. and this has largely been true, even. i've never really taken addiction seriously, although i've learned that there is such a thing as physical addiction and refraining from substances can produce physical effects.
i'm for reals this time, though.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
i should probably just laugh. well, i *am* laughing.
i needed a shelf for the top of my closet. it's a simple thing to do, in theory: measure the length and the width of the rectangular area, go down to the store, get a piece cut, bring it back: done. 15 cubic feet of new storage space, just like that. right?
well, i get the thing inside the closet and it won't fit. da fuck? measured the plate: fine. try one more time...still no good. da fuck?
ok, it won't fit squarely with the back. yet, i just measured it. da fuck? this is confusing. as a mathematician, i understand very well that the width and length of a rectangle are const....
shit. measuring tape confirmed it: not a rectangle. slanted at the back. to the store, i return....
dude laughs at me. rectangle? shoddy finishing? fuck. who do you think put it together, da vinci? every closet in the fucking world is crooked. no, this is your fault, precious: you should have measured all four sides.
ok. fine. i'll plead ignorance.
get it home. won't fit. shit, don't tell me..
yup.
dimensions of closet, clockwise:
27.5 - 30 - 26.5 - 31
yeah, well? fuck you too, plato.
i needed a shelf for the top of my closet. it's a simple thing to do, in theory: measure the length and the width of the rectangular area, go down to the store, get a piece cut, bring it back: done. 15 cubic feet of new storage space, just like that. right?
well, i get the thing inside the closet and it won't fit. da fuck? measured the plate: fine. try one more time...still no good. da fuck?
ok, it won't fit squarely with the back. yet, i just measured it. da fuck? this is confusing. as a mathematician, i understand very well that the width and length of a rectangle are const....
shit. measuring tape confirmed it: not a rectangle. slanted at the back. to the store, i return....
dude laughs at me. rectangle? shoddy finishing? fuck. who do you think put it together, da vinci? every closet in the fucking world is crooked. no, this is your fault, precious: you should have measured all four sides.
ok. fine. i'll plead ignorance.
get it home. won't fit. shit, don't tell me..
yup.
dimensions of closet, clockwise:
27.5 - 30 - 26.5 - 31
yeah, well? fuck you too, plato.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Jessica Amber Murray
she's not going to be in the department after all, she's moving to england with a super bourgy boyfriend. those pictures don't do her justice; that was one very attractive lady. i've just been setting things up, it's been one project after another, and i still have a lot of things to do. i guess i haven't been smoking much. or drinking at all.
ESA
Sweet. Im excited for that too. Quitting smoking and drinking.
Jessica Amber Murray
that being said, i just realized i have two storage spaces and i'm going to put some chairs and a table in one of them and turn it into a smoking room. i can run an extra speaker set from the receiver out, and throw a bottle of febreeze in there - as long as the window stays open, i think it should be ok as a porch alternative. i think it used to be an entrance down into the place. it's sort of weird and hard to explain.
ESA
Haha cool.
Cant wait to see it.
she's not going to be in the department after all, she's moving to england with a super bourgy boyfriend. those pictures don't do her justice; that was one very attractive lady. i've just been setting things up, it's been one project after another, and i still have a lot of things to do. i guess i haven't been smoking much. or drinking at all.
ESA
Sweet. Im excited for that too. Quitting smoking and drinking.
Jessica Amber Murray
that being said, i just realized i have two storage spaces and i'm going to put some chairs and a table in one of them and turn it into a smoking room. i can run an extra speaker set from the receiver out, and throw a bottle of febreeze in there - as long as the window stays open, i think it should be ok as a porch alternative. i think it used to be an entrance down into the place. it's sort of weird and hard to explain.
ESA
Haha cool.
Cant wait to see it.
Jessica Amber Murray
i'm about to buy a dresser from a prof in the music department. i'll make to sure to tell exaggerated stories about you :P http://msjeffreys.weebly.com/
ESA
No!!! Tell her only nice things
Are you enjoying windsor so far? What have you been up to?
i'm about to buy a dresser from a prof in the music department. i'll make to sure to tell exaggerated stories about you :P http://msjeffreys.weebly.com/
ESA
No!!! Tell her only nice things
Are you enjoying windsor so far? What have you been up to?
Re: Reply to your "Dresser" Ad on Kijiji
From: "UWindsor"
To: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Sure! Sounds great!
The address is ***************.
Ms Jeffreys, B.A., B.Ed.
Music Instructor
msjeffreys.weebly.com
To: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Sure! Sounds great!
The address is ***************.
Ms Jeffreys, B.A., B.Ed.
Music Instructor
msjeffreys.weebly.com
Re: Reply to your "Dresser" Ad on Kijiji
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: UWindsor
oh, ok. lol. the map sent me way out to the east end of town, somewhere about 5 blocks east of the bus.
i'm actually within walking distance, although i'll probably have to take two or three trips on account of the drawers. could i come by a little after 7:00 to see it with the near certainty of taking it?
jessica
To: UWindsor
oh, ok. lol. the map sent me way out to the east end of town, somewhere about 5 blocks east of the bus.
i'm actually within walking distance, although i'll probably have to take two or three trips on account of the drawers. could i come by a little after 7:00 to see it with the near certainty of taking it?
jessica
Re: Reply to your "Dresser" Ad on Kijiji
From: "UWindsor"
To: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
I'm available after 7 today. Also, I am right by a bus stop. I am located on Argyle and Wyandotte.
Sincerely,
Ms. Jeffries
To: "Jessica Murray" <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
I'm available after 7 today. Also, I am right by a bus stop. I am located on Argyle and Wyandotte.
Sincerely,
Ms. Jeffries
Re: Reply to your "Dresser" Ad on Kijiji
From: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: "Ms. Jeffreys' Music"
ok.
next question: it seems like you're a bit of a ways from the nearest bus stop. would it be possible to either get the dresser to the nearest bus stop or (better yet) all the way to where i am, which is just east of downtown?
jessica
To: "Ms. Jeffreys' Music"
ok.
next question: it seems like you're a bit of a ways from the nearest bus stop. would it be possible to either get the dresser to the nearest bus stop or (better yet) all the way to where i am, which is just east of downtown?
jessica
Re: Reply to your "Dresser" Ad on Kijiji
From: "Ms. Jeffreys' Music"
To: <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Hi Jessica!
It is just under 49" across.
To: <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Hi Jessica!
It is just under 49" across.
You have replied to "Dresser" Ad on Kijiji
From: Kijiji Canada <donotreply@kijiji.ca>
To: death.to.koalas@gmail.com
Hello! You have sent the following email to "Dresser" Ad on Kijiji:
hi.
i'm just wondering if you could measure how wide the dresser is? it looks about right, but i need it to be less than 50 inches across.
To: death.to.koalas@gmail.com
Hello! You have sent the following email to "Dresser" Ad on Kijiji:
hi.
i'm just wondering if you could measure how wide the dresser is? it looks about right, but i need it to be less than 50 inches across.
dresser shopping is proving irritating. on the one hand, i don't want to put the money down at walmart. on the other hand, i don't want to pay $200 for $20 worth of wood at a pawn shop. i'd be ok with paying $50 for $20 worth of wood, at the very most, and am hoping kijiji bails me out, eventually.
it's sort of ironic. i bet there are antique dealers shaking their head at these kijiji ads, saying "don't they know that's worth ten times as much?". if i was the dealer, i'd be out there buying the stuff up and marking it up on the floor, but then i'd be a special kind of asshole, wouldn't i? meanwhile, i'm walking through the antique shops shaking my head, saying "that ought to be worth a tenth of the price it's listed for, i bet i could get it cheaper on kijiji.".
so, what is the correct value of the thing?
if we're talking labour theory of value here, i can understand the cost as applied to a new dresser, but from my perception an old dresser is really legitimately just a chunk of worthless wood and these antique dealers are really running an unethical business...
it's sort of ironic. i bet there are antique dealers shaking their head at these kijiji ads, saying "don't they know that's worth ten times as much?". if i was the dealer, i'd be out there buying the stuff up and marking it up on the floor, but then i'd be a special kind of asshole, wouldn't i? meanwhile, i'm walking through the antique shops shaking my head, saying "that ought to be worth a tenth of the price it's listed for, i bet i could get it cheaper on kijiji.".
so, what is the correct value of the thing?
if we're talking labour theory of value here, i can understand the cost as applied to a new dresser, but from my perception an old dresser is really legitimately just a chunk of worthless wood and these antique dealers are really running an unethical business...
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
i’ve got a whole eco-system out here on my front porch. that lady seems to like feeding everything in sight: alley cats, squirrels, little birds. it’s been sort of idyllic and peaceful to sit outside amongst all the different little animals, but reality just asserted itself: i saw a hawk swoop down this morning. i think it was a hawk, anyways. i didn’t get a good look at it, just saw the back of it from the side of my eye as it tactically avoided a fence. it may have been an owl, but it definitely wasn’t a pigeon or a gull. i actually haven’t seen a single pigeon or gull yet, strangely….
there were four kittens here, at one point, though. now there’s three. in fact, i only saw two this morning.
well, that’s what happens when you attract a little wildlife sanctuary, i guess. the next logical step is coyotes. coyotes nowadays are sort of not coyotes anymore, though. they’ve been tracking a lot of interbreeding between coyotes and wolves in eastern north america over the last few decades. it has become strong enough of a phenomenon that there’s been talk of a hybridization event. the way it’s working itself out is that a large amount of wolf dna is trickling down into the coyote population. we’d like to hope for the best in such a thing, but evolution has a wily (sorry) character: what we’re seeing develop is a type of canid that has the physical strength and increased killing power of a wolf and the general lack of fear of humans of a coyote. the most adapted traits of each, naturally. so, they’re bigger, stronger and more dangerous coyotes. it’s one thing to talk about moving into their territory, and human encroachment may be driving the hybridization, but the reality is that they’re moving back into the cities and causing some problems. well, you didn’t think that all the wildlife we’re destroying wouldn’t adapt and put up a fight, did you? just a little check on your anthropocentric preconceptions, there. it’s going to require a little bit of careful thinking to try and find a way to co-exist with these more aggressive coyotes (or coywolves). these are predator species. they may be smart enough to know not to attack you directly, especially if there are other things around to eat, including out of garbage bins, but they *are* going to eat your cat if you let it out.
i should clarify that i haven’t seen one yet, and i don’t want to be alarmist about it. wolves have definitely been on the other end of a lot of alarmism. it doesn’t change the trend that’s developing and the need for some kind of humane strategy, though. what i saw today was an avian predator.
…but back to the cats. there were initially three very small ones and a slightly older one. i don’t think the bigger one is a mother because she looks like a kitten, too. i could be wrong, though. cats actually breed fairly young, don’t they? i remember reading something a while back that compared them to rabbits (thereby strengthening my rodentia hypothesis), but i don’t really know. anyways, the bigger one has been a little more brave and the smaller ones seem to be following along a little. they still haven’t come over to say hi yet but i think they’re at least used to me now…
alley cats seem to be a different kind of animal in the sense that they’re not really attracted to the idea of human affection. the big one seems to be holding out that i may have some kind of food for it, and i ultimately don’t think it’s likely that it’s going to come towards me unless i offer it some. that’s all humans are good for, i guess. personally, i’m rather insulted, and am not planning on resorting to bribery for the purposes of building a friendship. the kitty shall come out of sincere and legitimate interest or not at all…
it’s scoping me out, though, in the sense that it has figured out that i live on the other side of the basement windows. i’ve caught it peering in. it’s actually a bit of a process of doing a set of rounds: whenever i come in the door, it goes over to the front window to observe me, and then to the next and the next until it’s been all the way around. perhaps that’s my territory, if you will. well, it was there first! that’s fair. it will come right up to the window and has even pawed a few times, but scatters off the moment i open it…
i think there’s a sort of irony, there. i’m the one on the other side of the glass.
there were four kittens here, at one point, though. now there’s three. in fact, i only saw two this morning.
well, that’s what happens when you attract a little wildlife sanctuary, i guess. the next logical step is coyotes. coyotes nowadays are sort of not coyotes anymore, though. they’ve been tracking a lot of interbreeding between coyotes and wolves in eastern north america over the last few decades. it has become strong enough of a phenomenon that there’s been talk of a hybridization event. the way it’s working itself out is that a large amount of wolf dna is trickling down into the coyote population. we’d like to hope for the best in such a thing, but evolution has a wily (sorry) character: what we’re seeing develop is a type of canid that has the physical strength and increased killing power of a wolf and the general lack of fear of humans of a coyote. the most adapted traits of each, naturally. so, they’re bigger, stronger and more dangerous coyotes. it’s one thing to talk about moving into their territory, and human encroachment may be driving the hybridization, but the reality is that they’re moving back into the cities and causing some problems. well, you didn’t think that all the wildlife we’re destroying wouldn’t adapt and put up a fight, did you? just a little check on your anthropocentric preconceptions, there. it’s going to require a little bit of careful thinking to try and find a way to co-exist with these more aggressive coyotes (or coywolves). these are predator species. they may be smart enough to know not to attack you directly, especially if there are other things around to eat, including out of garbage bins, but they *are* going to eat your cat if you let it out.
i should clarify that i haven’t seen one yet, and i don’t want to be alarmist about it. wolves have definitely been on the other end of a lot of alarmism. it doesn’t change the trend that’s developing and the need for some kind of humane strategy, though. what i saw today was an avian predator.
…but back to the cats. there were initially three very small ones and a slightly older one. i don’t think the bigger one is a mother because she looks like a kitten, too. i could be wrong, though. cats actually breed fairly young, don’t they? i remember reading something a while back that compared them to rabbits (thereby strengthening my rodentia hypothesis), but i don’t really know. anyways, the bigger one has been a little more brave and the smaller ones seem to be following along a little. they still haven’t come over to say hi yet but i think they’re at least used to me now…
alley cats seem to be a different kind of animal in the sense that they’re not really attracted to the idea of human affection. the big one seems to be holding out that i may have some kind of food for it, and i ultimately don’t think it’s likely that it’s going to come towards me unless i offer it some. that’s all humans are good for, i guess. personally, i’m rather insulted, and am not planning on resorting to bribery for the purposes of building a friendship. the kitty shall come out of sincere and legitimate interest or not at all…
it’s scoping me out, though, in the sense that it has figured out that i live on the other side of the basement windows. i’ve caught it peering in. it’s actually a bit of a process of doing a set of rounds: whenever i come in the door, it goes over to the front window to observe me, and then to the next and the next until it’s been all the way around. perhaps that’s my territory, if you will. well, it was there first! that’s fair. it will come right up to the window and has even pawed a few times, but scatters off the moment i open it…
i think there’s a sort of irony, there. i’m the one on the other side of the glass.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
ruminations on potato chip flavourings
so, i decided to try the new "perogie" flavour of potato chips, amongst a few others. i kind of have a strange urge to try all the potato chip types. needless to say, it was more or less false advertising. it tasted sort of like a mild barbeque. yet, it got me thinking: what would i have *expected* a perogie potato chip to taste like? is the idea even coherent?
see, perogie is a complex flavour. you've got your bacon, your potato, your sour cream. how are you going to get all that into a bite-sized potato chip? i've noticed a correlation between disappointing bags and complex flavours. so, maybe we should go back to basics, here. what, exactly, *is* a flavoured potato chip?
if we look at the staple flavours we notice a pattern, which is that the goal is to emulate something somebody would do with a potato, or probably with a french fry. we've got ketchup, for example. that makes a lot of sense, as ketchup is pretty popular on french fries. there are the varieties of cheese...things. cheesies. doritos. dill goes well on potatoes as well and had been ported to multiple mediums. there's a strong consistency, here, as you continue to explore: salt/vinegar, those peppery ms. vickies things, sour cream, barbeque and even the frankenstein approach of "all dressed" that sort of makes me shudder to seriously contemplate.
following this line of thought, i'd like to provide a few more stable suggestions that may actually be worthwhile. by focusing on all these complex things that make no sense as potato toppings., they're really taking the wrong approach, here.
1) mayonnaise. this is the most obvious thing ever, actually. globally, mayonnaise is actually a more popular french fry topping than ketchup is.
2) mustard. i'm a big mustard fan myself, i have to say, so i've actually gone to the length of dumping a pile of mustard on the side of the plate as my condiment of choice. if you're not as large a mustard fan as i, you've surely at least accidentally mixed your fry in it with it, and it was delicious wasn't it? you could even do limited edition bourgy dijon twists...
3) mayonnaise + mustard. obviously.
4) salad dressings. well, you've done this. salad & fries. they end up mixed up. caesar, ranch...actually, i'm a big fan of that orange shit. catalina?
5) soups. tomato, mushroom.
whether you think these are good ideas or not, you must surely admit they make more sense than pizza or bbq chicken or other such nonsense.
see, perogie is a complex flavour. you've got your bacon, your potato, your sour cream. how are you going to get all that into a bite-sized potato chip? i've noticed a correlation between disappointing bags and complex flavours. so, maybe we should go back to basics, here. what, exactly, *is* a flavoured potato chip?
if we look at the staple flavours we notice a pattern, which is that the goal is to emulate something somebody would do with a potato, or probably with a french fry. we've got ketchup, for example. that makes a lot of sense, as ketchup is pretty popular on french fries. there are the varieties of cheese...things. cheesies. doritos. dill goes well on potatoes as well and had been ported to multiple mediums. there's a strong consistency, here, as you continue to explore: salt/vinegar, those peppery ms. vickies things, sour cream, barbeque and even the frankenstein approach of "all dressed" that sort of makes me shudder to seriously contemplate.
following this line of thought, i'd like to provide a few more stable suggestions that may actually be worthwhile. by focusing on all these complex things that make no sense as potato toppings., they're really taking the wrong approach, here.
1) mayonnaise. this is the most obvious thing ever, actually. globally, mayonnaise is actually a more popular french fry topping than ketchup is.
2) mustard. i'm a big mustard fan myself, i have to say, so i've actually gone to the length of dumping a pile of mustard on the side of the plate as my condiment of choice. if you're not as large a mustard fan as i, you've surely at least accidentally mixed your fry in it with it, and it was delicious wasn't it? you could even do limited edition bourgy dijon twists...
3) mayonnaise + mustard. obviously.
4) salad dressings. well, you've done this. salad & fries. they end up mixed up. caesar, ranch...actually, i'm a big fan of that orange shit. catalina?
5) soups. tomato, mushroom.
whether you think these are good ideas or not, you must surely admit they make more sense than pizza or bbq chicken or other such nonsense.
Monday, August 12, 2013
mom
I guess you have your internet now??
Jessica Amber Murray
no, i'm at the tim horton's across from the uhaul. i need to do some research on fridges.
mom
Oh yes...Won't disability help you with that? They used to anyways.
That and dryers, washers and stoves if one needed them.
Jessica Amber Murray
no. well, i'll ask after. i doubt it.
there's a washer/dryer. it's sort of weird. the dryer is free, but the washer is $4. which would be alright, if it wasn't so small. i'll probably use a laundromat. there's a stove i can move in. it's old, but i only use it to fry eggs and make spaghetti. worst case, i'll just get one of those portable elements. probably more useful to me in the long run (i could use it for camping or whatever if/when i move). likewise, i'm thinking i'll probably get a mini-fridge, if they're cheaper. i don't need a big or fancy fridge. when i had a big fridge before, it was mostly empty most of the time..
I guess you have your internet now??
Jessica Amber Murray
no, i'm at the tim horton's across from the uhaul. i need to do some research on fridges.
mom
Oh yes...Won't disability help you with that? They used to anyways.
That and dryers, washers and stoves if one needed them.
Jessica Amber Murray
no. well, i'll ask after. i doubt it.
there's a washer/dryer. it's sort of weird. the dryer is free, but the washer is $4. which would be alright, if it wasn't so small. i'll probably use a laundromat. there's a stove i can move in. it's old, but i only use it to fry eggs and make spaghetti. worst case, i'll just get one of those portable elements. probably more useful to me in the long run (i could use it for camping or whatever if/when i move). likewise, i'm thinking i'll probably get a mini-fridge, if they're cheaper. i don't need a big or fancy fridge. when i had a big fridge before, it was mostly empty most of the time..
documents to print
From: Jessica Murray
To: wpl850@gmail.com
hi.
both files should open with word.
j
1) Answering the question of why I.doc
He claims that I suffer from weak symptoms of depression and that this is part of the reason that I’ve been unable to work. I cannot deny that the symptoms associated with the diagnosed ‘dysthymia’ seem applicable, but if they’re applicable now then they’ve been applicable continually since early childhood and they didn’t prevent me from working in the past. I do not honestly believe that I am too depressed to function in the workforce on a general basis, but I will concede that my general personality is not ideal for a job in the service industry, which is about the only industry that I am now and likely ever will be qualified to work in. So, there is a roundabout relevancy to the observation. Insofar as this is my personality, and the issue is perhaps wholly described in these terms, this is not a resolvable issue without some form of drug use or psycho-therapy. Is it worth the state’s time and energy to put a hopelessly apathetic personality type through therapy so that it can flip burgers for minimum wage? Excuse me for being jaded by the prospect.
I hope you’ll excuse my biases in favour of empiricism over deductive reasoning, but perhaps the better argument in favour of my inability to work is the fact that I’ve been so unsuccessful in the work force over the last several years. My last period of ‘gainful employment’ ended in mid-2008 due to a layoff. I was then fired twice in 2008, both times due to chronic tardiness that was brought on by symptoms that seem consistent with the diagnosis of dysthymia, before heading back to school to study computer science, partially as a result of being unable to find steady employment. I felt targeted by my professors over the next few years due to the fact that I rarely attended classes. I rarely attended classes due to issues of social anxiety; while I’ve never needed to sit in class to keep up and my grades have always been above the curve, most professors were not sensitive to this at all and, in staggering displays of counter-productive ignorance, decided to pick me out and make an example of me. This led to two predictable outcomes. First, I was forced to stand up for myself and challenge several professors through administrative means. I won every fight. Second, I was then even less likely to attend classes due to the increased social anxieties of being singled out by professors and peers. As an aside, I think that there should be mandatory training for professors about the issue of social anxiety and why it prevents some students from attending class or working in groups. Certainly, making an example of students for ‘truancy’ under ignorant assumptions should be viewed not just as unacceptable and unprofessional but as criminal harassment. Over time, I became paranoid and suspicious of all professors and teaching assistants under the empirical deduction that they seemed to be purposefully singling me out, which made me even more anxious, even more upset and excessively confrontational. I eventually forced myself out of the program a credit short of graduation; I do not feel that I can complete the program with an objective evaluation at this particular institution. My GPA in the program is above 10 out of 12, which is an A.
Accepting that it was best to cut my losses and start fresh, it was in the fall of 2010 that I forced myself out of the program in order to raise the income necessary to undergo gender transition. I’ve been unable to find any significant employment since then. The few jobs that I’ve been able to find have been either part time or commission-based, and I’ve been fired from all of them, except one - a part-time job at a company that was short-staffed and in the process of bankruptcy. When the company eventually failed, I lost employment.
How many interviews have I been to over the last year and a half? I’ve been to several hundred of them, and in every industry imaginable. I’ve been to dozens and dozens of fast food interviews, including at several of the same restaurants multiple times, and simply cannot get anybody in the industry to hire me. Dysthymia may be to blame, as may be transphobia. To be blunt, I think the culprit is more likely to be a combination of ageism and reverse-classism. With no recent service industry experience, an advanced education and being above the age of 30, this is simply not an option that is open to me. Unfortunately, it’s also the only option that I have without going to school again. If I am accepted into disability, I may indeed enroll in correspondent classes at the other local university with the hopes of putting myself in a better long term self-employment situation.
I was first diagnosed with gender dysphoria more than ten years ago. I’ve always felt as though I am female, but was taught (primarily by my mother) to suppress those feelings as abnormal and wrong. My mother, overall, has had a haunting effect on my life. She suffers from paranoia, schizophrenia and drug and alcohol abuse; she was extremely emotionally negligent and abusive towards me for most of my young childhood, which has left me deeply codependent and very strongly attracted to exploitative and abusive relationships. A few months into transition, I fell into one of these deeply abusive relationships with a young girl that convinced me to stop hormone therapy. We went our ways several years later; I have arguably yet to recover from the emotional damage she caused me, but going back into transition is a positive step forward in the proper direction of the recovery of my ego and self-confidence.
As I’ve been unable to find employment for the last year and a half, I’ve had to rely on the help of family members. My father is wealthy, but I am not welcome in his home due to issues of transphobia. He helped me for a little while and then cut me off in a sink or swim scenario. I ended up getting evicted from my apartment, losing most of my belongings and moving into the spare room in my elderly grandmother’s apartment, which is where I am currently. My grandmother is a compassionate woman but she lives on a fixed income and cannot afford to take care of me indefinitely. I need to find an alternate solution.
Welfare has not been a valid solution. The maximum monthly amount is not sufficient for any individual to exist upon; as I am currently not paying rent, it’s been cut down to $200/month, which I find to be remarkable. My medication is almost $200/month! The idea of me raising enough money to move away from my grandmother through welfare is laughable. I cannot find employment. I cannot function socially. I cannot stay here forever. Without some kind of significant state intervention, my future, then, appears to be either in homelessness or prostitution or both.
I went to the doctor to try and understand what the causes of the problems I’ve been experiencing are and don’t feel I’ve walked away with a deeper insight than I had before. Depression that is so weak that it cannot even be called depression? That seems so trivial, and so unworthy of aid. However, when the diagnosis is put in the context of what I’ve experienced over the last several years, perhaps a larger pattern emerges. Perhaps my social and contentedness problems are at the root of my inability to find employment and, if that is truly the case, then perhaps, and despite years of denial, I do qualify for disability.
Hopefully, this will be the short term solution that allows me to rebuild my life in the face of an adversity that is larger than I am able to conquer through sheer willpower and hard work. I feel I’ve run out of other options and am asking you for aid out of desperation.
Jessica
2) odsp essay.rtf.
Hello.
I apologize for the late response, but I had a very difficult several weeks and needed some time to reflect before attempting to engage with anybody in any kind of official capacity. My relationship with my father was slightly strained over the last few years of his life, but it remains a loss that I am likely to feel deeply for many years to come.
I understand that I need to explain my decision to move to Windsor, and will gladly do so. I may even go so far as to suggest to your office that it is a process you should actively involve yourselves with on a regular basis, as the process would have been less erratic had I had a little bit of help with it. I also feel that many people that live on ODSP in Ottawa could have their quality of life profoundly increased by relocating somewhere where the cost of living is dramatically lower. Within that sentence lies the core of my reason to relocate, but it is void of any kind of context. My diagnosis is PTSD, but I feel my condition is more in the schizo-affective spectrum (and merely driven by stress), so to get a proper grasp of the situation requires creating the context through narrative. I'm willing to acknowledge at this point that I ended up signing a lease in Windsor as a function of a stress-driven episode or breakdown; while I hope it is by more than pure coincidence, I do also feel very strongly that it was a positive decision that will help me accomplish the goals that I have.
The first thing that needs to be understood would be the rather hopeless conditions I was living in. I stayed in my grandmother's spare room (in a two bedroom apartment) from approximately November, 2011 until July, 2013. She allowed me to stay there because I had nowhere else to go, and it was a safe and stable place for me, but she was openly hostile about the fact that she did not want me there and threatened to throw me out on multiple occasions. By this July passed, I had already missed several deadlines related to me leaving and was expecting to be forcefully ejected around September if I was unable to find anywhere else to go. However, I also knew that I would be unable to find anywhere else to go, so I was more or less just waiting out the time and planning for whatever drastic actions that the inevitable would force into being. In my case, that meant drinking a lot of alcohol with a close friend of mine and ranting out various depression-fueled ballads.
It would be an error to accuse me of a lack of effort. I state this in defense, and indignantly, as it should go without saying that failure does not imply a deficit of labour as much as it implies a deficit of ability; when we fail, we generally don't do so because we didn't try hard enough, we do so because our strongest efforts were not good enough. To create a market society that necessarily produces losers and then blame the losers is an incoherent position, logically; it is the system that produces losers, who are victims, and the system that must change to get people out of that situation. Should I or anybody else claw their way out, it would merely relegate another to the position. There's no net gain by focusing on the individual, merely a continuation of the harmful mindset that has precluded the problem of splitting society into winners and losers.
That being said, it seemed as though I found something in June, but the price seemed too good to be true and the conditions on the lease demonstrated as much. I applied for several places throughout June and July but was systemically rejected from all of them. While I was never able to get a response back on what the precise issues may have been, I can take a few guesses - my credit is very bad, there are societal stigmas against people that are unable to work due to disabilities (and many people that question if this is actually really true), I am openly transgendered and I have a deeper concept of classical Greek (albeit not much) than I do of business-normality. Business-minded people tend to interpret me as childish; while the feeling is mutual, artists don't tend to be property agents so there wasn't much chance of me finding somebody I could see eye-to-eye with. The reality is that finding an apartment in Ottawa is something I would not have been able to do without some help from a body of some sort, such as subsidized housing.
This is a good place to bring up the cost of housing in Ottawa, which is beyond what an ODSP living expenses allotment can be reasonably considered to allow for. You don't have to take my word for this. There was a white paper issued some time last year (Brighter Prospects: Transforming Social Assistance in Ontario. Frances Lankin and Munir A. Sheikh) with a *key recommendation* to calculate living expenses through a market-dependent formula on a city-by-city basis to compensate for the differences in rent prices across the province. In a city such as Sudbury, $479/month may come close to providing for shelter. In Ottawa, it is difficult to find a room for $479/month; bachelors usually run over $700 and one bedrooms run close to $900, generally not including utilities. The white paper suggested increasing living expenses in Ottawa to account for this higher market cost while keeping amounts in Sudbury steady (or perhaps even decreasing the shelter amount). I am not surprised that the government has completely ignored this recommendation in favour of hiding a push for workfare behind a phony attack on ableism. However, the white paper demonstrates that this is a problem that exists, that the government is failing to react to it (or even acknowledge it) and that finding a solution is imperative. As the government will not act to increase the living expenses allowance, I feel anything that I might do to compensate should be commended and possibly studied as a model of action. Certainly, *somebody* has to do something about this.
The places I applied for in Ottawa were at 80-90% of my monthly check and would have made living day-to-day extremely difficult. They were the cheapest places I could find that I could have actually lived in. I would have likely been unable to afford proper nourishment for myself, clothes, entertainment, or much of anything else besides the cost of rent and food. While I can survive for very long periods on spaghetti and books, that's not much of any kind of existence. I often found myself asking the following question: if they wish to kill the weak, why not just go ahead and do so? Why bother letting us live if the result is a sort of torturous boredom? Did I want to bother with that kind of existence? I was seriously contemplating suicide.
There are various solutions that could be proposed. One is to find a rooming house, but this wouldn't be possible for me. The reason I'm on disability is that I can't function socially. Putting me into a rooming house is going to exacerbate the problem and throw me into a series of episodic fits. In order to maintain sound mental health, I need to spend a large amount of time (probably close to 90% of it) completely alone - not with an animal, not with a partner, nobody at all except me. So, this is an option that is out of the question. A second would be to get a job, but I'm facing two barriers in relation to this. The first barrier is that I've found finding employment to be very difficult (discrimination due to gender expression, artist/business incompatibility and other more traditional reasons such as a lack of any kind of non-academic experience relative to my age) and the second is again that I'm on disability due to an inability to function socially and could not work *enough* hours to compensate, anyways. A third option was to wait for the condo boom to lead to a crash in the price of rent, but that could take up to ten years and I had to find an answer as soon as possible.
So, there didn't really seem to be a solution, and often the only thing that made sense was to get drunk and drown away the hopelessness....
....until a friend of mine completely accidentally provided me with a solution I hadn't really contemplated: she suggested I move out of Ottawa with her. At first, I wrote the idea off entirely as something I couldn't afford to organize. However, the more I looked into it, the more I realized how beneficial it would be to me if I could find a way to get it done.
She picked Windsor as a destination, and I ended up here before her, but that didn't automatically place me here. The entire area of southern Ontario has rent at half the price of Ottawa. Even Toronto has areas of low rent housing...
What I began to see as I was studying the rental markets of cities in Ontario is that it isn't Windsor that is exceedingly cheap (although it is one of the cheapest places), but Ottawa that is outrageously expensive. Worse, from my perspective, is that Ottawa simply doesn't have a low rent market. Rent is mildly cheaper in Vanier, but pretty much consistent across town. I can only guess at reasons for this. It is possible to find a one-bedroom apartment in the less safe areas of Toronto for under $479/month; why isn't that true in Ottawa? Is it because there aren't unsafe areas in Ottawa? Is it because there is a chronic shortage of subsidized housing in Ottawa and this artificially inflates the cost of rent? Whatever the reason, I need to be clear about the precise nature of this subtle point. It may be true that Toronto is more expensive than Ottawa *on average* once you've worked in all of the ridiculously expensive suites on Yonge Street that there is not really a parallel to in Ottawa, either. However, if you're on ODSP or welfare or even working minimum wage, your options for cheap rent in Toronto are considerably better; from the perspective of looking at the market from the bottom up, Ottawa is incomparably more expensive than Toronto. It is the most expensive place to live in Ontario, whereas Windsor is one of the cheapest.
Coming to this realization was actually very important, as it made me realize that the situation was not hopeless after all - I just happened to be stuck in the most expensive city in the province, by whatever unfortunate twist of randomness. So long as I could find a way out of Ottawa, things might be OK after all.
It was decided, then, that we'd go down to Windsor to observe the situation. She had friends we could stay with. No decisions about Windsor were made at that point; I thought it would be a good idea to take a strong survey of the entire area southeast and southwest of Toronto before any serious decisions were made and decided to do that by hitchhiking. Things worked out a little differently...
Before I left, I wanted to spend some time with my father who was at the end stages of terminal brain cancer. After three unsuccessful attempts at surgery, he stopped taking his chemotherapy drugs at the beginning of July. This was a conscious end-of-life decision; the third surgery left him with some brain damage, and a fourth surgery would have almost certainly left him severely brain damaged if it didn't kill him outright. While my stepmother assured me that he'd be alive when I got back, I didn't know how long I'd be gone and didn't want to miss the opportunity to have a real and serious goodbye. The night before I left, we had a very emotional phone call that I felt was a permanent goodbye (he was losing control of his face muscles and therefore his ability to talk), and it triggered me into a state of passive mania for the next week or so that subsequent events only exacerbated. I was getting updates about the situation every few days as I was traveling. As it is, my father died on Sunday, July 28th while I was sleeping in a Tim Horton's in Windsor; I signed a lease on Monday, July 29th to move in for August 1st without any ability to finance, with the sole aim of getting home in time for the funeral. The reality is that I was in a haze the whole time I was gone, was not behaving particularly rationally and barely remember large portions of the week at all. For somebody with stress-related issues, that's a whole lot of stress to try and deal with without reacting in a less than ideal manner.
I did, however, get a place in Windsor; and I did make it home for the funeral. I may have wanted, ideally, to spend a little more time shopping in the area by hitching rides from town to town, but my willingness to do that was itself perhaps symptomatic of the mania I was feeling all week (was I avoiding the pain of facing up to my father's death by escaping town?) and in the end the place I got is something I couldn't afford to have rented in Ottawa. Everything else aside, I feel this is a smart decision that will help me live more comfortably on a very small income.
I was able to finance first and last ($1300) by taking a loan from my stepmother, and I borrowed roughly that from my biological mother's friend (who was gracious enough to drive) to rent a U-haul for 800 miles and pay for gas. If there are any kinds of programs (such as the discretionary moving allowance, or first/last rent helper startups) that are available to help me pay some of this back, it would help me make this fresh start truly fresh. It's going to take a long time to pay back $2500.
To answer the question as to why I would move to Windsor, briefly: I simply could not afford to live independently in Ottawa.
I have attached the essay I initially sent to ODSP a little over a year ago, where I explain the reasons I applied for ODSP and what I hoped to get from it. I do feel as though this move is a major step in getting me along in the process. To update the situation, I spent the 2012-2013 school year studying Law at Carleton University (and completed a minor in the subject). I feel this helped me work through some personal issues, but do not think I am well suited for a career in this field.
I am not sure what kind of employment opportunities exist in Windsor, but I am not convinced it particularly matters because I am not confident about my abilities to convince an employer to hire me in the first place. The reality is this: If I am unable to compete with teenagers for service jobs in Ottawa, moving to Windsor is not going to increase my chances, but is not going to significantly harm them either. I am unlikely to find a job either way. I am more likely to secure employment through luck or systemic aid than I am through competition on the open job market. I don’t need more schooling – I have far too much schooling – I need some kind of targeted job training and I need some experience doing something useful (32 years old and with no experience doing anything except reading books is a significant employment hurdle). About the best thing (and the most realistic thing) I can say is that my luck may be better here in Windsor than it was in Ottawa. However, I’m not holding my breath. I’ll just have to see what happens.
Jessica
To: wpl850@gmail.com
hi.
both files should open with word.
j
1) Answering the question of why I.doc
How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb
Answering the question of why I’ve been unable to work over the last few years, and why I feel that this will likely continue for several more, is not something I can do with ease. In truth, this is what I sought out a psychiatric opinion about. I did not come to the process of evaluation with an understanding of the problem but with a desire to better understand it and I do not honestly feel as though my brief encounter with this psychiatrist has left me with a significantly better understanding of the core issues.
He claims that I suffer from weak symptoms of depression and that this is part of the reason that I’ve been unable to work. I cannot deny that the symptoms associated with the diagnosed ‘dysthymia’ seem applicable, but if they’re applicable now then they’ve been applicable continually since early childhood and they didn’t prevent me from working in the past. I do not honestly believe that I am too depressed to function in the workforce on a general basis, but I will concede that my general personality is not ideal for a job in the service industry, which is about the only industry that I am now and likely ever will be qualified to work in. So, there is a roundabout relevancy to the observation. Insofar as this is my personality, and the issue is perhaps wholly described in these terms, this is not a resolvable issue without some form of drug use or psycho-therapy. Is it worth the state’s time and energy to put a hopelessly apathetic personality type through therapy so that it can flip burgers for minimum wage? Excuse me for being jaded by the prospect.
I hope you’ll excuse my biases in favour of empiricism over deductive reasoning, but perhaps the better argument in favour of my inability to work is the fact that I’ve been so unsuccessful in the work force over the last several years. My last period of ‘gainful employment’ ended in mid-2008 due to a layoff. I was then fired twice in 2008, both times due to chronic tardiness that was brought on by symptoms that seem consistent with the diagnosis of dysthymia, before heading back to school to study computer science, partially as a result of being unable to find steady employment. I felt targeted by my professors over the next few years due to the fact that I rarely attended classes. I rarely attended classes due to issues of social anxiety; while I’ve never needed to sit in class to keep up and my grades have always been above the curve, most professors were not sensitive to this at all and, in staggering displays of counter-productive ignorance, decided to pick me out and make an example of me. This led to two predictable outcomes. First, I was forced to stand up for myself and challenge several professors through administrative means. I won every fight. Second, I was then even less likely to attend classes due to the increased social anxieties of being singled out by professors and peers. As an aside, I think that there should be mandatory training for professors about the issue of social anxiety and why it prevents some students from attending class or working in groups. Certainly, making an example of students for ‘truancy’ under ignorant assumptions should be viewed not just as unacceptable and unprofessional but as criminal harassment. Over time, I became paranoid and suspicious of all professors and teaching assistants under the empirical deduction that they seemed to be purposefully singling me out, which made me even more anxious, even more upset and excessively confrontational. I eventually forced myself out of the program a credit short of graduation; I do not feel that I can complete the program with an objective evaluation at this particular institution. My GPA in the program is above 10 out of 12, which is an A.
Accepting that it was best to cut my losses and start fresh, it was in the fall of 2010 that I forced myself out of the program in order to raise the income necessary to undergo gender transition. I’ve been unable to find any significant employment since then. The few jobs that I’ve been able to find have been either part time or commission-based, and I’ve been fired from all of them, except one - a part-time job at a company that was short-staffed and in the process of bankruptcy. When the company eventually failed, I lost employment.
How many interviews have I been to over the last year and a half? I’ve been to several hundred of them, and in every industry imaginable. I’ve been to dozens and dozens of fast food interviews, including at several of the same restaurants multiple times, and simply cannot get anybody in the industry to hire me. Dysthymia may be to blame, as may be transphobia. To be blunt, I think the culprit is more likely to be a combination of ageism and reverse-classism. With no recent service industry experience, an advanced education and being above the age of 30, this is simply not an option that is open to me. Unfortunately, it’s also the only option that I have without going to school again. If I am accepted into disability, I may indeed enroll in correspondent classes at the other local university with the hopes of putting myself in a better long term self-employment situation.
I was first diagnosed with gender dysphoria more than ten years ago. I’ve always felt as though I am female, but was taught (primarily by my mother) to suppress those feelings as abnormal and wrong. My mother, overall, has had a haunting effect on my life. She suffers from paranoia, schizophrenia and drug and alcohol abuse; she was extremely emotionally negligent and abusive towards me for most of my young childhood, which has left me deeply codependent and very strongly attracted to exploitative and abusive relationships. A few months into transition, I fell into one of these deeply abusive relationships with a young girl that convinced me to stop hormone therapy. We went our ways several years later; I have arguably yet to recover from the emotional damage she caused me, but going back into transition is a positive step forward in the proper direction of the recovery of my ego and self-confidence.
As I’ve been unable to find employment for the last year and a half, I’ve had to rely on the help of family members. My father is wealthy, but I am not welcome in his home due to issues of transphobia. He helped me for a little while and then cut me off in a sink or swim scenario. I ended up getting evicted from my apartment, losing most of my belongings and moving into the spare room in my elderly grandmother’s apartment, which is where I am currently. My grandmother is a compassionate woman but she lives on a fixed income and cannot afford to take care of me indefinitely. I need to find an alternate solution.
Welfare has not been a valid solution. The maximum monthly amount is not sufficient for any individual to exist upon; as I am currently not paying rent, it’s been cut down to $200/month, which I find to be remarkable. My medication is almost $200/month! The idea of me raising enough money to move away from my grandmother through welfare is laughable. I cannot find employment. I cannot function socially. I cannot stay here forever. Without some kind of significant state intervention, my future, then, appears to be either in homelessness or prostitution or both.
I went to the doctor to try and understand what the causes of the problems I’ve been experiencing are and don’t feel I’ve walked away with a deeper insight than I had before. Depression that is so weak that it cannot even be called depression? That seems so trivial, and so unworthy of aid. However, when the diagnosis is put in the context of what I’ve experienced over the last several years, perhaps a larger pattern emerges. Perhaps my social and contentedness problems are at the root of my inability to find employment and, if that is truly the case, then perhaps, and despite years of denial, I do qualify for disability.
Hopefully, this will be the short term solution that allows me to rebuild my life in the face of an adversity that is larger than I am able to conquer through sheer willpower and hard work. I feel I’ve run out of other options and am asking you for aid out of desperation.
Jessica
2) odsp essay.rtf.
odsp essay
I apologize for the late response, but I had a very difficult several weeks and needed some time to reflect before attempting to engage with anybody in any kind of official capacity. My relationship with my father was slightly strained over the last few years of his life, but it remains a loss that I am likely to feel deeply for many years to come.
I understand that I need to explain my decision to move to Windsor, and will gladly do so. I may even go so far as to suggest to your office that it is a process you should actively involve yourselves with on a regular basis, as the process would have been less erratic had I had a little bit of help with it. I also feel that many people that live on ODSP in Ottawa could have their quality of life profoundly increased by relocating somewhere where the cost of living is dramatically lower. Within that sentence lies the core of my reason to relocate, but it is void of any kind of context. My diagnosis is PTSD, but I feel my condition is more in the schizo-affective spectrum (and merely driven by stress), so to get a proper grasp of the situation requires creating the context through narrative. I'm willing to acknowledge at this point that I ended up signing a lease in Windsor as a function of a stress-driven episode or breakdown; while I hope it is by more than pure coincidence, I do also feel very strongly that it was a positive decision that will help me accomplish the goals that I have.
The first thing that needs to be understood would be the rather hopeless conditions I was living in. I stayed in my grandmother's spare room (in a two bedroom apartment) from approximately November, 2011 until July, 2013. She allowed me to stay there because I had nowhere else to go, and it was a safe and stable place for me, but she was openly hostile about the fact that she did not want me there and threatened to throw me out on multiple occasions. By this July passed, I had already missed several deadlines related to me leaving and was expecting to be forcefully ejected around September if I was unable to find anywhere else to go. However, I also knew that I would be unable to find anywhere else to go, so I was more or less just waiting out the time and planning for whatever drastic actions that the inevitable would force into being. In my case, that meant drinking a lot of alcohol with a close friend of mine and ranting out various depression-fueled ballads.
It would be an error to accuse me of a lack of effort. I state this in defense, and indignantly, as it should go without saying that failure does not imply a deficit of labour as much as it implies a deficit of ability; when we fail, we generally don't do so because we didn't try hard enough, we do so because our strongest efforts were not good enough. To create a market society that necessarily produces losers and then blame the losers is an incoherent position, logically; it is the system that produces losers, who are victims, and the system that must change to get people out of that situation. Should I or anybody else claw their way out, it would merely relegate another to the position. There's no net gain by focusing on the individual, merely a continuation of the harmful mindset that has precluded the problem of splitting society into winners and losers.
That being said, it seemed as though I found something in June, but the price seemed too good to be true and the conditions on the lease demonstrated as much. I applied for several places throughout June and July but was systemically rejected from all of them. While I was never able to get a response back on what the precise issues may have been, I can take a few guesses - my credit is very bad, there are societal stigmas against people that are unable to work due to disabilities (and many people that question if this is actually really true), I am openly transgendered and I have a deeper concept of classical Greek (albeit not much) than I do of business-normality. Business-minded people tend to interpret me as childish; while the feeling is mutual, artists don't tend to be property agents so there wasn't much chance of me finding somebody I could see eye-to-eye with. The reality is that finding an apartment in Ottawa is something I would not have been able to do without some help from a body of some sort, such as subsidized housing.
This is a good place to bring up the cost of housing in Ottawa, which is beyond what an ODSP living expenses allotment can be reasonably considered to allow for. You don't have to take my word for this. There was a white paper issued some time last year (Brighter Prospects: Transforming Social Assistance in Ontario. Frances Lankin and Munir A. Sheikh) with a *key recommendation* to calculate living expenses through a market-dependent formula on a city-by-city basis to compensate for the differences in rent prices across the province. In a city such as Sudbury, $479/month may come close to providing for shelter. In Ottawa, it is difficult to find a room for $479/month; bachelors usually run over $700 and one bedrooms run close to $900, generally not including utilities. The white paper suggested increasing living expenses in Ottawa to account for this higher market cost while keeping amounts in Sudbury steady (or perhaps even decreasing the shelter amount). I am not surprised that the government has completely ignored this recommendation in favour of hiding a push for workfare behind a phony attack on ableism. However, the white paper demonstrates that this is a problem that exists, that the government is failing to react to it (or even acknowledge it) and that finding a solution is imperative. As the government will not act to increase the living expenses allowance, I feel anything that I might do to compensate should be commended and possibly studied as a model of action. Certainly, *somebody* has to do something about this.
The places I applied for in Ottawa were at 80-90% of my monthly check and would have made living day-to-day extremely difficult. They were the cheapest places I could find that I could have actually lived in. I would have likely been unable to afford proper nourishment for myself, clothes, entertainment, or much of anything else besides the cost of rent and food. While I can survive for very long periods on spaghetti and books, that's not much of any kind of existence. I often found myself asking the following question: if they wish to kill the weak, why not just go ahead and do so? Why bother letting us live if the result is a sort of torturous boredom? Did I want to bother with that kind of existence? I was seriously contemplating suicide.
There are various solutions that could be proposed. One is to find a rooming house, but this wouldn't be possible for me. The reason I'm on disability is that I can't function socially. Putting me into a rooming house is going to exacerbate the problem and throw me into a series of episodic fits. In order to maintain sound mental health, I need to spend a large amount of time (probably close to 90% of it) completely alone - not with an animal, not with a partner, nobody at all except me. So, this is an option that is out of the question. A second would be to get a job, but I'm facing two barriers in relation to this. The first barrier is that I've found finding employment to be very difficult (discrimination due to gender expression, artist/business incompatibility and other more traditional reasons such as a lack of any kind of non-academic experience relative to my age) and the second is again that I'm on disability due to an inability to function socially and could not work *enough* hours to compensate, anyways. A third option was to wait for the condo boom to lead to a crash in the price of rent, but that could take up to ten years and I had to find an answer as soon as possible.
So, there didn't really seem to be a solution, and often the only thing that made sense was to get drunk and drown away the hopelessness....
....until a friend of mine completely accidentally provided me with a solution I hadn't really contemplated: she suggested I move out of Ottawa with her. At first, I wrote the idea off entirely as something I couldn't afford to organize. However, the more I looked into it, the more I realized how beneficial it would be to me if I could find a way to get it done.
She picked Windsor as a destination, and I ended up here before her, but that didn't automatically place me here. The entire area of southern Ontario has rent at half the price of Ottawa. Even Toronto has areas of low rent housing...
What I began to see as I was studying the rental markets of cities in Ontario is that it isn't Windsor that is exceedingly cheap (although it is one of the cheapest places), but Ottawa that is outrageously expensive. Worse, from my perspective, is that Ottawa simply doesn't have a low rent market. Rent is mildly cheaper in Vanier, but pretty much consistent across town. I can only guess at reasons for this. It is possible to find a one-bedroom apartment in the less safe areas of Toronto for under $479/month; why isn't that true in Ottawa? Is it because there aren't unsafe areas in Ottawa? Is it because there is a chronic shortage of subsidized housing in Ottawa and this artificially inflates the cost of rent? Whatever the reason, I need to be clear about the precise nature of this subtle point. It may be true that Toronto is more expensive than Ottawa *on average* once you've worked in all of the ridiculously expensive suites on Yonge Street that there is not really a parallel to in Ottawa, either. However, if you're on ODSP or welfare or even working minimum wage, your options for cheap rent in Toronto are considerably better; from the perspective of looking at the market from the bottom up, Ottawa is incomparably more expensive than Toronto. It is the most expensive place to live in Ontario, whereas Windsor is one of the cheapest.
Coming to this realization was actually very important, as it made me realize that the situation was not hopeless after all - I just happened to be stuck in the most expensive city in the province, by whatever unfortunate twist of randomness. So long as I could find a way out of Ottawa, things might be OK after all.
It was decided, then, that we'd go down to Windsor to observe the situation. She had friends we could stay with. No decisions about Windsor were made at that point; I thought it would be a good idea to take a strong survey of the entire area southeast and southwest of Toronto before any serious decisions were made and decided to do that by hitchhiking. Things worked out a little differently...
Before I left, I wanted to spend some time with my father who was at the end stages of terminal brain cancer. After three unsuccessful attempts at surgery, he stopped taking his chemotherapy drugs at the beginning of July. This was a conscious end-of-life decision; the third surgery left him with some brain damage, and a fourth surgery would have almost certainly left him severely brain damaged if it didn't kill him outright. While my stepmother assured me that he'd be alive when I got back, I didn't know how long I'd be gone and didn't want to miss the opportunity to have a real and serious goodbye. The night before I left, we had a very emotional phone call that I felt was a permanent goodbye (he was losing control of his face muscles and therefore his ability to talk), and it triggered me into a state of passive mania for the next week or so that subsequent events only exacerbated. I was getting updates about the situation every few days as I was traveling. As it is, my father died on Sunday, July 28th while I was sleeping in a Tim Horton's in Windsor; I signed a lease on Monday, July 29th to move in for August 1st without any ability to finance, with the sole aim of getting home in time for the funeral. The reality is that I was in a haze the whole time I was gone, was not behaving particularly rationally and barely remember large portions of the week at all. For somebody with stress-related issues, that's a whole lot of stress to try and deal with without reacting in a less than ideal manner.
I did, however, get a place in Windsor; and I did make it home for the funeral. I may have wanted, ideally, to spend a little more time shopping in the area by hitching rides from town to town, but my willingness to do that was itself perhaps symptomatic of the mania I was feeling all week (was I avoiding the pain of facing up to my father's death by escaping town?) and in the end the place I got is something I couldn't afford to have rented in Ottawa. Everything else aside, I feel this is a smart decision that will help me live more comfortably on a very small income.
I was able to finance first and last ($1300) by taking a loan from my stepmother, and I borrowed roughly that from my biological mother's friend (who was gracious enough to drive) to rent a U-haul for 800 miles and pay for gas. If there are any kinds of programs (such as the discretionary moving allowance, or first/last rent helper startups) that are available to help me pay some of this back, it would help me make this fresh start truly fresh. It's going to take a long time to pay back $2500.
To answer the question as to why I would move to Windsor, briefly: I simply could not afford to live independently in Ottawa.
I have attached the essay I initially sent to ODSP a little over a year ago, where I explain the reasons I applied for ODSP and what I hoped to get from it. I do feel as though this move is a major step in getting me along in the process. To update the situation, I spent the 2012-2013 school year studying Law at Carleton University (and completed a minor in the subject). I feel this helped me work through some personal issues, but do not think I am well suited for a career in this field.
I am not sure what kind of employment opportunities exist in Windsor, but I am not convinced it particularly matters because I am not confident about my abilities to convince an employer to hire me in the first place. The reality is this: If I am unable to compete with teenagers for service jobs in Ottawa, moving to Windsor is not going to increase my chances, but is not going to significantly harm them either. I am unlikely to find a job either way. I am more likely to secure employment through luck or systemic aid than I am through competition on the open job market. I don’t need more schooling – I have far too much schooling – I need some kind of targeted job training and I need some experience doing something useful (32 years old and with no experience doing anything except reading books is a significant employment hurdle). About the best thing (and the most realistic thing) I can say is that my luck may be better here in Windsor than it was in Ottawa. However, I’m not holding my breath. I’ll just have to see what happens.
Jessica
ugh. i'm ready to pay $100/month just to turn off the fucking radio. honestly.
this pop-techno craze is horrific. never before has there been a more simplistic, watered down, completely fucking boring style of music. worse, it's hopelessly generic. you can't even tell when the songs switch. it's impossible. they're all identical. relief seems to come in the form of sappy new country that was likely written with the intent of ending up in a hallmark commercial. ugh.
i like a very wide variety of music, both very mainstream and not so much, and from just about every time period. i admit i've never liked the radio much, but it's never been so *irritating* that i've sat there sincerely wishing they'd just turn it off altogether...
this pop-techno craze is horrific. never before has there been a more simplistic, watered down, completely fucking boring style of music. worse, it's hopelessly generic. you can't even tell when the songs switch. it's impossible. they're all identical. relief seems to come in the form of sappy new country that was likely written with the intent of ending up in a hallmark commercial. ugh.
i like a very wide variety of music, both very mainstream and not so much, and from just about every time period. i admit i've never liked the radio much, but it's never been so *irritating* that i've sat there sincerely wishing they'd just turn it off altogether...
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
in windsor; still alive. kind of excited.
watching somebody literally tilt at windmills was sort of fun on the way in. sort of.
going to be a few weeks before i get the internet situation organized.
seems like i'm getting "free air conditioning" from the guy upstairs. it's a little chilly right this moment, but i'll get used to it and be happy about it if we get another heat wave.
i've had almost all of my possessions in storage for almost two years. a small amount of it seems to have disappeared, and i'm not happy about that, but we'll have to see what i can do about finding out what happened to it. i have a pretty good idea about what happened to some of it (like my electric mandolin, or my beat to shit acoustic 12-string) and no idea what happened to some of it (where did my blanket go?).
it's not like the internet wasn't already ubiquitous two years ago, and i've been a heavy user since the 90s, but unpacking some of these things is a little surreal in the sense of not realizing why i bothered keeping them: an answering machine, a giant world atlas from before the collapse of the soviet union, a copy of webster's dictionary.....
walking home from timmy's last night was also a little bit disturbing. i guess it was a little after midnight. i'm not really used to being catcalled at all, let alone the kind of abusive language i ended up on the other end of for the crime of walking down the street in a pair of tight pants. i'm not quite sure what it is that drives a car full of bros to yell "bitch" at a random person walking by minding their own business, or what the fuck somebody is thinking when they yell at a stranger to "shut their cunt". see, in the world i'm from, that kind of behaviour is grounds for somebody getting the shit kicked out of them. i was a little stoned, and a little shocked, so i just kept walking.....but i'm not shy with my fists, either. if that keeps up, i'm going to end up having to beat the shit out of some of idiots. i got a few yells when i was here before (a literal "hey girl", a "hey beautiful"), but it wasn't anything like that....
besides that, which is something i can deal with, the night's worth of reflection has left me happy about this. things are shaping up well. there's a ton of little things i need to do to get the place set up, and it's going to take a while, but i'm ok with spending the time on it.
watching somebody literally tilt at windmills was sort of fun on the way in. sort of.
going to be a few weeks before i get the internet situation organized.
seems like i'm getting "free air conditioning" from the guy upstairs. it's a little chilly right this moment, but i'll get used to it and be happy about it if we get another heat wave.
i've had almost all of my possessions in storage for almost two years. a small amount of it seems to have disappeared, and i'm not happy about that, but we'll have to see what i can do about finding out what happened to it. i have a pretty good idea about what happened to some of it (like my electric mandolin, or my beat to shit acoustic 12-string) and no idea what happened to some of it (where did my blanket go?).
it's not like the internet wasn't already ubiquitous two years ago, and i've been a heavy user since the 90s, but unpacking some of these things is a little surreal in the sense of not realizing why i bothered keeping them: an answering machine, a giant world atlas from before the collapse of the soviet union, a copy of webster's dictionary.....
walking home from timmy's last night was also a little bit disturbing. i guess it was a little after midnight. i'm not really used to being catcalled at all, let alone the kind of abusive language i ended up on the other end of for the crime of walking down the street in a pair of tight pants. i'm not quite sure what it is that drives a car full of bros to yell "bitch" at a random person walking by minding their own business, or what the fuck somebody is thinking when they yell at a stranger to "shut their cunt". see, in the world i'm from, that kind of behaviour is grounds for somebody getting the shit kicked out of them. i was a little stoned, and a little shocked, so i just kept walking.....but i'm not shy with my fists, either. if that keeps up, i'm going to end up having to beat the shit out of some of idiots. i got a few yells when i was here before (a literal "hey girl", a "hey beautiful"), but it wasn't anything like that....
besides that, which is something i can deal with, the night's worth of reflection has left me happy about this. things are shaping up well. there's a ton of little things i need to do to get the place set up, and it's going to take a while, but i'm ok with spending the time on it.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
bicycle?
From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: stepmother’s email address
how much would you want for that bicycle? or do you want me to just take it off your hands?
i kind of screwed mine up a little worse than i thought. i was trying to straighten the handle bars, and i ended up losing a lot of the ball bearings that allow the front handle bars to turn (i twisted the wrong allan key open). it's still rideable, but it's not very safe unless i'm moving fairly slowly because turning is very jagged.
i took a walk down to the closest store and the guy in the store said it'll cost about $50 to fix it. i mean, i just need to get the ball bearings in, but i've never done that before, so i'd rather get somebody to do it. the thing is that that bike in your garage is the same model. so, if i can get that bike cheaper, it would make more sense to keep the one i have for spare parts...or fix it and keep it as a backup in case i've got a flat or something. i had two bikes for a long time and found it very convenient for that reason.
j
To: stepmother’s email address
how much would you want for that bicycle? or do you want me to just take it off your hands?
i kind of screwed mine up a little worse than i thought. i was trying to straighten the handle bars, and i ended up losing a lot of the ball bearings that allow the front handle bars to turn (i twisted the wrong allan key open). it's still rideable, but it's not very safe unless i'm moving fairly slowly because turning is very jagged.
i took a walk down to the closest store and the guy in the store said it'll cost about $50 to fix it. i mean, i just need to get the ball bearings in, but i've never done that before, so i'd rather get somebody to do it. the thing is that that bike in your garage is the same model. so, if i can get that bike cheaper, it would make more sense to keep the one i have for spare parts...or fix it and keep it as a backup in case i've got a flat or something. i had two bikes for a long time and found it very convenient for that reason.
j
Friday, August 2, 2013
i wasn't expecting them to give me the cash, but i was expecting them to let me buy some bottles and leave. apparently, they're not licensed for that. ok. fine. i believed that...
as i was leaving, somebody asked me where my sign was. yeah, well that's why i didn't think it was such a great idea to eat there. glass accidentally ends up in food all the time, you know.
so, i stood outside the door for a few minutes trying to scalp it. eventually, the manager came out and accused me of trying to sell them back a gift certificate that was given to me by the victim in the wage theft case. of course, that's honestly not true - it was really given to me by my grandmother. manager wasn't willing to accept that. we had a discussion about whether i was legally entitled to stand on the sidewalk or not and i eventually agreed that, because i was soliciting, i should walk down the street a little.
"anybody going to vittoria trattoria? gift certificate here! get your gift certificate here!"
they came out to shoo me off three or four times; it's a good thing i'm fast on my feet, because a few times it seemed ready to turn into a chase....
i did *almost* sell it, but in the end the guy didn't want to wait an hour and a half. in total, it didn't look like i was getting anywhere. so when somebody came up to ask me for change for the chipwagon, i sent her in to get a nice meal instead.
as i was leaving, somebody asked me where my sign was. yeah, well that's why i didn't think it was such a great idea to eat there. glass accidentally ends up in food all the time, you know.
so, i stood outside the door for a few minutes trying to scalp it. eventually, the manager came out and accused me of trying to sell them back a gift certificate that was given to me by the victim in the wage theft case. of course, that's honestly not true - it was really given to me by my grandmother. manager wasn't willing to accept that. we had a discussion about whether i was legally entitled to stand on the sidewalk or not and i eventually agreed that, because i was soliciting, i should walk down the street a little.
"anybody going to vittoria trattoria? gift certificate here! get your gift certificate here!"
they came out to shoo me off three or four times; it's a good thing i'm fast on my feet, because a few times it seemed ready to turn into a chase....
i did *almost* sell it, but in the end the guy didn't want to wait an hour and a half. in total, it didn't look like i was getting anywhere. so when somebody came up to ask me for change for the chipwagon, i sent her in to get a nice meal instead.
Re: cds
From: "Jessica Murray" <dfhldgdhdlhfdla@gmail.com>
To: stepmother’s email address, sister’s email address
ok, so i got a bunch of them back from vertigo. some bowie, some crimson, some gabriel....these were some of the ones that were important to me.
they were very human about it and sold them back to me at cost. it was still $75 for around 25 cds. i'm going to ask you to contemplate whether that's a cost that you think i should pay out for something i'm absolutely 100% certain, with no space for doubt, that my father wanted me to have.
the ones that are most important to me are the genesis and the zappa. what happened to those ones? there was also a few other crimson discs i couldn't locate.
i also went to turning point and the record centre. the record centre had no recollection of anybody coming in, but turning point told me my sister came in yesterday with a handful of “common titles” - he mentioned that she indicated that a lot of the cds would go to “his friends”
sister, were those his cds or yours? did you sell anything there yesterday? what?
i'm going to email d and the surviving uncle. i expect that they'll give me the discs, as that's what my father would have wanted. we can skip a step, here.
i'm not angry, so much as i'm shocked. i don't care what the discs are worth on a monetary basis. the memories attached to them are priceless. a few of his discs would be the only thing of his that i wanted...
j
To: stepmother’s email address, sister’s email address
ok, so i got a bunch of them back from vertigo. some bowie, some crimson, some gabriel....these were some of the ones that were important to me.
they were very human about it and sold them back to me at cost. it was still $75 for around 25 cds. i'm going to ask you to contemplate whether that's a cost that you think i should pay out for something i'm absolutely 100% certain, with no space for doubt, that my father wanted me to have.
the ones that are most important to me are the genesis and the zappa. what happened to those ones? there was also a few other crimson discs i couldn't locate.
i also went to turning point and the record centre. the record centre had no recollection of anybody coming in, but turning point told me my sister came in yesterday with a handful of “common titles” - he mentioned that she indicated that a lot of the cds would go to “his friends”
sister, were those his cds or yours? did you sell anything there yesterday? what?
i'm going to email d and the surviving uncle. i expect that they'll give me the discs, as that's what my father would have wanted. we can skip a step, here.
i'm not angry, so much as i'm shocked. i don't care what the discs are worth on a monetary basis. the memories attached to them are priceless. a few of his discs would be the only thing of his that i wanted...
j
Thursday, August 1, 2013
so, i have still have that $50 gift certificate for vittoria trattoria.
(don't eat there, they need an iww picket outside their door to get them to follow basic labour standards)
i think the best thing to do is get some wine with that $50. well, i don't want to just forfeit it. that would literally be as ridiculous as ripping up a $50 bill, and who is that ridiculous? nobody is that ridiculous...
i know nothing of wine, other than that i like the taste of fruit more than i like the taste of antifreeze. ideally, i'd get two bottles, and i don't mind paying a few dollars over the $50 in tax or whatever. i'm going to expect that the servers earn any tip, though.
suggestions on what i should get?
(don't eat there, they need an iww picket outside their door to get them to follow basic labour standards)
i think the best thing to do is get some wine with that $50. well, i don't want to just forfeit it. that would literally be as ridiculous as ripping up a $50 bill, and who is that ridiculous? nobody is that ridiculous...
i know nothing of wine, other than that i like the taste of fruit more than i like the taste of antifreeze. ideally, i'd get two bottles, and i don't mind paying a few dollars over the $50 in tax or whatever. i'm going to expect that the servers earn any tip, though.
suggestions on what i should get?
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